Materials
We source our materials as locally as possible. This helps to reduce our CO2 footprint. We make every effort to produce the materials we need in Switzerland and to source them directly.

Araku Valley, India Delight
Our "India Delight" coffee comes from the biodynamic cultivation of Adivasi farmers in the Araku region of eastern India. For ten years, the Naandi Foundation has been teaching individual families the craft of biodynamic coffee cultivation. As a result, yields have increased and the farmers have new perspectives. They joined together in the SAMTFMACS cooperative to promote sustainable coffee cultivation and regulated incomes. We buy the coffee directly from the farmers, independently of the stock market price and without middlemen, and we are committed to fair trade.
The Naandi Foundation actively fights poverty in India. More than three million people in nine Indian states benefit from it.
The Nanhi Kali program in Araku offers underprivileged Adivasi girls the opportunity to complete ten years of schooling. This is a rarity in rural areas. Thanks to the housing facilities, girls from remote areas can also enjoy schooling. 40 USD is enough to support a girl for a whole year.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Secondary packaging materials are necessary for the logistics of a coffee roastery. Black & Blaze strives to reuse as many of these as possible through proactive communication, and achieves a reuse value of approximately 20% for secondary packaging materials.
The green coffee reaches us in classic jute bags from the coffee belt regions. Due to the constant increase in green coffee sales, the number of empty jute sacks is also rising steadily, so we have developed various solutions. A very large part of the jute bags is reused by the Maur Forestry Office for wood storage, and we make some of the bags available free of charge. The jute sacks find various applications, such as further processing into bags and hats.
The Heybico company produces reusable cups from sustainable raw materials, such as bamboo, corn starch and melamine resin. They are durable, dishwasher safe and can be reused several hundred times before they need to be replaced.
We promote Heybico reusable cups in SchmückToGo and actively contribute to reducing the waste of coffee-to-go culture.

Mother and calf husbandry (MuKa)
With MuKa milk, Black & Blaze is setting a new standard in milk consumption. We want to show that sustainable milk production can be the norm. In the production of this milk, the welfare of the animals is paramount. Calves are not separated from their mothers, and only excess milk is milked off. In addition, the cows are allowed to keep their horns.
In our SchmückToGo coffee window, we use only MuKa milk in addition to oat milk. We actively encourage our gastronomy customers, therefore, to switch to this fair standard.

Labels
We attach great importance to natural and fair coffee cultivation. We are proud that most of our coffee beans are either Rainforest Alliance or organic certified. This means that value is placed on sustainable and ecologically responsible cultivation methods.
We also trust producers of non-certified coffee beans to meet our high standards. We know how important it is that farmers are treated fairly and that their environment is protected. This is the only way to ensure a sustainable future for all. That's why it's important to us to work only with producers who share these values and are committed to sustainable coffee production.

Parchment skins
A small residue of parchment skin still adheres to most green coffee beans. During the grating process, this is detached and collected in a separate container.
This by-product is 100% organic and free of additives. Black & Blaze releases a part of it into the grounds department of the municipality of Maur and another part is spread in gardens as surface protection, fertilizer and biomass.
In cooperation with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) we support the advancement of the development of plastics on a renewable basis and the production of glucose, from this by-product.

FOB standard
The "Free-on-Board" standard (FOB standard) is another criterion to which we attach importance. This promotes fair trade by guaranteeing coffee farmers a contractually regulated income. This allows long-term business models with fair working conditions to be established. The FOB standard motivates producers to improve their products and implement sustainability aspects.